US, rich nations seek to junk unresolved issues at Doha climate talks

The US and other developed nations took on the developing world here on the second day of the Doha round of climate talks.

DOHA: The US and other developed nations took on the developing world here on the second day of the Doha round of climate talks. They demanded that all the unresolved issues be junked for good in Qatar and the world must carry on with finalizing a new global treaty — a compact that Washington hopes will finally break the firewall between the rich and the developing countries.

Other developed countries too backed the US, arguing unresolved issues should not hold up talks.

India, however, demanded that outstanding concerns be discussed and a conclusion reached here instead of simply abandoning them.

The 194 countries, who are members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), had in 2009 begun negotiations on what is called the Bali Action Plan. The plan was to increase the emission reduction efforts from the rich and the developing countries and simultaneously create ways for transfer of funds and technologies from the rich to the poor parts of the world.

This track of negotiations led to the Copenhagen Accord and the Cancun Agreements, where countries presented their pledges for emission reduction and also agreed to international scrutiny. A commitment to transfer $100 billion annually starting 2020 was agreed upon, though the methodology still remains unresolved. Similarly several other concerns of the developing world remained unresolved like how equity would be deployed in distributing the burden of emission reductions, transfer of technologies, intellectual property rights and unilateral trade measures.

Last December, in Durban it was decided that all the issues on this track would be resolved — reaching an ‘agreed outcome’ in diplomatic jargon — and then the world would need to negotiate only on one track to reach a global compact for a post-2020 climate regime.

But the Umbrella group of countries, which includes the US, Canada and Australia besides others, demanded that unresolved issues should be consigned to oblivion summarily and only those elements over which consensus existed be taken on board, much to the vociferous opposition of the developing world.

A developing world negotiator told TOI, "First, the developed countries blocked any resolution of issues that are close to our interests, and now they say junk them because they are unresolved."

The Pakistani delegate Farrukh Khan also warned that while $100 billion had been promised to be delivered by the rich countries by 2020, no one knew where and how the funds would materialize.